Saturday, April 21, 2012

Sometimes great plans are altered by life. Nothing major has happened to alter mine, just day to day things, new art gallery opening, getting a run or two in, and helping the niece with her class project. It all helps in the creativeness of my life, but frustrates me all the same. Having said all this and making a promise to myself that I would post weekly, I decided that I would pull from my favorite images and talk about them, my plan B when I am interrupted.

Last year, I created a series of 50 images from the Stairways in San Francisco. This was one of my favorites, simply because someone wrote "Take It Easy" on a stone bench half way up this flight of stairs. While walking Fort Mason, I came accross these amazing stairs. Yes, they were long and looking from the bottom to the top very daunting, but all you can do is take one step at a time. Finding the writing on the wall was the encouraging voice inside your head that is needed to give you the extra boost to keep walking up those stairs.

We rush and stress so much in life, when really, perhaps all we need to do is just "Take It Easy". I did stress when I wasn't on my plan for updating my blog. Than I just took a step back and realized there are other ways to update with out some grand theme. Life is all about the steps in order to get where we want to go.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Many of you may already know about instagram, many of you may only know of it as the company Facebook just brought for a billion dollars and still some of you may still be thinking, huh?! Well, let me introduce you to my Instragram world!

While their relationship is just beginning, I have been seriously involved with them for sometime, it all began on Facebook, so I am glad that their success is ever changed by them because my world has been. I want an iPhone just to have this app, (for now and until my phone plan is up) I have my iPad and my Canon PowerShot A2200 with adaptor. It not as "insta" as I would love it to be, but still allows my creativity to soar.

For those of you not familiar, Instagram is a photo sharing app that allows the user to take an photo on their smartphone ( it also available for the Android market) or iPad and instantly share. Basically, creating a moment in the life series of images. Instagram gives us another outlet for expression, it can take old and mistaken photographs make them new, it can take a new picture and make it old, all by filters on this app and how you see things.

For me, personally, it is a way I get the little things I see and want to share with others out there, from a leaf on the ground, a sunset, a moon set or even just a way to say Happy St Patrick's Day to friends. The filters are an added treat; blurring the edges, changing to black & white and even recreating a 1977 film look it is all there in the palm of your hands. The images have beautiful imperfections that I feel make everything better.

I am a film lover and always will be, but these new digital innovations are creating new ways of expressing ourselves as photographers, enhancing how we see things. I am following some outstanding photographers like drsmoothdeath, greymatters, cryingjune and Sam Horine, along with so many others on instragram. They allow me a glimpse of places I have never seen but long too, of new ideas to try someday and sometimes just that smile that is needed after a long day.

I am a proud user of Instagram, swirlphoto, in case you are looking for me and invite all of you, if you haven't already to download this app and get to exploring! A little added plus, it is FREE!